Using the medical food flavocoxid [corrected] in managing osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common debilitating joint disease worldwide. Clinicians have many therapeutic modalities and prescription medications in their arsenals to treat chronic inflammatory pain. However, as patients age, and develop numerous comorbidities, the most common, and often most effective pharmacologic treatment for OA, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), becomes problematic in that it may exacerbate or even cause cardiovascular, renal, and/or gastrointestinal pathology. This paper reviews the metabolism of arachidonic acid as it relates to the clinical treatment of inflammation, and explores a novel botanical therapy, flavocoxid, that has shown equal efficacy to naproxen in treating pain associated with mild to moderate OA of the knee. Flavocoxid has demonstrated balanced inhibition of the three primary enzymes responsible for processing AA, cyclooxygenases 1 and 2, and 5-lipoxygenase. Researchers have proposed that balanced inhibition of AA metabolism offers the promise of analgesia similar to NSAIDs without the associated cardiovascular, renal, or gastrointestinal side effects.